Mike Lary

'Side by Side' is a good documentary that focuses on this question and interviews some top dogs in the industry. What is your definition of an "actual professional"?

By transcoding and dropping your resolution you're throwing away a ridiculous amount of data. You should always grade from the raw data. If that's not possible at least do a primary correction in REDcineX before you transcode.

I think it will assist with pushing the price down a bit on future cinema camera's.

Seem BM know what they are doing.

 

Anyone know if Davinci Resolve will come with it?

Since the image size of the pocket camera is less than 2K you can use the lite version. The 2.5K camera requires the full version of Resolve.

I would spend the time in pre-production figuring out the logistics and avoid green screen unless I had a competent compositor committed to the project.

 

it's all the more confusing because DOP 1 used DOP 2's lighting plan on one day of the four-day shoot and shot 2 time lapse shots for the final edit!

 

You could credit him as Lighting Director, then. The fact is that he didn't perform the role of Cinematographer / D.P. and therefore does not deserve that credit. This is actually not confusing at all. Just take this person's emotion out of the equation and use logic.

Editors don't get credited as writer or director when they "save" a film. People need to keep their egos in check and accept the credit for the actual services they provided.

It's in the article:

"You format the XR Capture Drive either for ARRIRAW or for ProRes. SxS PRO cards have not been forgotten. An adapter with a single slot accommodates an SxS PRO card. (SxS-1 and SxS PRO+ cards are not compatible with Alexa.)"

I guess I need to rethink the value of that speedreading class I took...

The H is for "half vertical resolution". That mode supports higher frame rates but at a lower quality level. The user manual lists the differences pretty clearly.

"An adapter will still allow for SxS PRO cards to be used for ProRes."

Where did you see that information? The article says the XR module will record RAW or ProRes but doesn't specify an adapter for SxS Pro.

If you can make your money back fast it might be a good investment, but you need to consider purchasing a RedRocket card as well to increase transcoding speeds. It's a tried and true system (unlike the BMDCC), so you shouldn't be in for any surprises if you do your homework.

WTB Used Cooke S4 135mm

You can try to shoot in this manner. I wish you the best but I fear that you will find it a frustrating experience.

I have no interest in shooting in compressed 1080 mode (although the image does look good from the tests I've done). The main attraction of this camera is its raw capability. I wouldn't sacrifice raw capability unless a workflow demanded ProRes right out of the box, and if had to shoot 1080 I definitely wouldn't use a lens that vignettes.

There is a difference of opinion with many experts saying you will lose resolution from 1080p by cropping the BMC image that needs to be converted to 1080p before applying any cropping.

 

What I NEED to know is if cropping for super 16mm is going to lose me resolution or detail or leave artifacts and if so how MUCH resolution, detail will I lose from the 1920x1080 final image for editing and colour correction..

Mark, your quote from Mitch Gross says there is no option in-camera to do the crop. He's referring to the compressed HD option. If you shoot raw you have the full 2.5K image and you have full control over that image. Unless you crop it to something smaller than 1080 you aren't losing resolution and won't lose image quality. What you might lose is the benefit of supersampling, but as another poster noted the difference probably won't be noticeable at these resolutions.

meanwhile i've learned that this particular camera having a 4k sensor and 1920:1080 output, the math is basically 4 pixels on the sensor output 1 pixel of image. These 4 pixels are as follows on RED one BLUE and TWO GREEN. So I think this is the main sensor ”feature” which causes the green tint.

What you're describing is a bayer pattern, which is widely. The reason for the additional green pixel is related to luminance, not chromaticity. Your issue is most likely caused by internal processing in the camera. You aren't recording raw data, so your white point is baked in. I would look at the custom white balance settings / matrix settings in-camera and tweak the white balance / dial out the bias.

Do you have any suggestion for a brand of heating pack?

Sorry, no. I haven't done this personally, so I'm just throwing out ideas. I would look at battery operated options, maybe something along the line of a small electric blanket that could wrap around the camera without getting in the way (maybe check pet stores or hunting supplies stores). It should maintain consistent temperature and not get hot enough to affect the film in a negative way, so it would need to be adjustable. If you have time to test for a few hours in the cold that would be best. It sounds like you won't have much prep time on this shoot. I hope it works out for you.

I'm the DP on a short, and our exterior scenes will be shot this Saturday in rural Quebec. The temperature is supposed to be around -20C (-4F). I hear cameras don't do very well in the extreme cold, what precautions can I take? What are possible side effects from shooting in this temperature (other than loosing my fingers)?

If I remember correctly the original Bolex documentation recommends having the camera serviced before using in extreme cold (something about a special grease that's needed). Since that's not an option I would try to keep the body warm, not only to avoid mechanical failure but also to keep your emulsion from slowing down and ruining your exposure. You could try something similar to what folks do with digital cameras to keep them from overheating - use packs on the sides to keep the body temperature maintained. You also need to watch out for sudden temperature changes because that could result in condensation on the film.

Disregard.

You should take a look at Ivan's Childhood (Tarkovsky), particularly the scene where the main character is acting out a war mission in his room in the dark.

Look LUT-building tools work by making a before / after comparison of a target image. There's no way to do it with a single image. You'd have to backwards engineer your look to create a LUT. If you can create a look that matches your desired aesthetic (using curve adjustments, etc) you can use Resolve (generate LUT from current grade) or PS6 (create Layer LUT) to create LUTs. There's a lite version of Resolve which is free and PS6 has a 30 day trial, so you could bang out all the LUTs you need without incurring any additional expense.

Does HFR wash out color? Apparently on Hobbit they had to add extra saturation to sets, even makeup to compensate for this.

You're probably thinking of compensation they made for the color shift introduced by the mirrors on their 3D rigs. That had nothing to do with HFR.

HFR has less blur, and that means more detail. More attention needs to be paid to makeup and set design. Think of when high resolution digital cameras came on the scene and started seeing through thin washes of paint on set walls and exposing flaws in actor's skin. HFR will kick that up a notch.

Jonas,

This was probably (almost definitely) caused by the CF card reader. All the readers I've tested, with the exception of Red's, have trouble maintaining data integrity during copy operations. The corruptions seem random because you can sometimes run several cards through the same reader, or even run the same card through the same reader, without problems, then suddenly a corruption happens. You won't have this problem with Red's CF card readers because they were designed specifically to address this problem.

Adrian mentioned checksum programs. For Red footage, R3D Data Manager works great. It will not only checksum, but also copy to multiple destinations simultaneously. The only drawback is that it takes a lot longer than a straight copy, but you'll save time if copying to multiple destinations.

It's already become popular and it will wear out like most trends. A way to gently push them away from it might be to use LUTs on set to alter their preview. After all, they like log because they've seen it so much. Give them something new to look at. Just be careful or they might fall in love with your LUT!

I am producing a student film, and was hoping to get some opinions about lighting for one of our pivotal scenes. We have an exterior confrontation that is seen from the POV of someone inside a store through the glass window. The director wants one long take, handheld, racking focus approx. 50' between the interior and exterior through the glass during the day, then following the character as they exit the store to join the ext. confrontation.

 

I have a huge number of concerns, the most obvious is being able to light the int and ext so that everything is not completely blown out. Additionally, all locations I have seen so far have tinted windows, which should take the ext down a few stops. (Not to mention flare issues)

 

How would you light this? Light up the interior, try and diffuse the sun, shoot it at night and HMI outside, or just rewrite it to be less complicated?

I think it could be told just as effectively with some rewrites and our 1st AC would be a lot happier. I'm all for awesome cine, but we have to take this scene in a day.

 

Just looking to get some outside advice. Thanks!

Weather permitting, I would shoot on an overcast day and light the interior to balance, but that's if I had the luxury of time. Another option would be rewriting the scene. You could cut from a POV through the window to a reverse of the character exiting the building, backing up with him/her, then let the character cross camera and come behind with a fluid motion and follow. This could incorporate an iris rack if needed.

There are patents (or pending patents) for folding/nesting leg designs and locking mechanisms (spring loaded grip heads, etc). Any deviations from the original design (one pieced welded) could have patents associated. A patent research specialist would be the right person to ask, though.

Hi

 

I would like to have opinions on how to expose for digital cameras. Do you meter for the right exposure in camera or do you use the histogram and try to get as much detail as possible and adjust the exposure in post?

It depends on the camera and whether you're shooting raw or to a codec. If you don't have time to do proper testing, measure with a light meter in the traditional way and check the histogram for clipping. Don't ever judge exposure by the image on the monitor. Ideally you'd do bracketed exposure tests in a variety of situations and run the footage through post to see where it breaks, how much detail you can pull out of the shadows, etc. Then you'll know what varying exposures in different lighting environments will give you and you can target exposure more precisely on set.